W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps IV - Battleground

Pickering saw Jack NMI Stecker handing a bag to one of the Marines on the barge. It was the bag he brought with him from the command ship USS McCawley when he'd come ashore.

"I know I've been sandbagged," Pickering said. "I gather there is no room for discussion?"

"Thank you for your services, Captain Pickering," Vandergrift said. "They have been appreciated by all hands."

Vandergrift handed Pickering the Ernest Leitz binoculars.

"General, I would be honored if you would hang onto those," Pickering said.

Vandergrift looked at the binoculars and then met Pickering's eyes.

"That's very kind of you, Fleming, thank you," he said. He put out his hand to Pickering.

Pickering had to grab the Springfield rifle with his left hand in order to take Vandergrift's hand with his right.

Then he held the rifle up.

"I won't need this any more, will I?"

"Why don't you take it with you?" Vandergrift said. "If nothing else, you could hang it on your wall. Then for the rest of your life, you could command attention by pointing to it and beginning a sentence, 'when I was on the beach at Guadalcanal...' "

"Touch‚, again, General."

"Bon voyage, Fleming," Vandergrift said. "I look forward to seeing you again."

He touched Pickering's arm and then walked away.

(Five)

WATER LILY COTTAGE

MANCHESTER AVENUE

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

0815 HOURS 17 AUGUST 1942

Mrs. Ellen Feller had just about finished dressing when she heard the crunch of tires on the driveway. A few seconds later, the double slamming of the front doors told her that Sergeant John Marston Moore had returned to the cottage.

The slamming doors annoyed her. She was already annoyed. Lieutenant Pluto Hon had been summoned to Townesville by Major Ed Banning-for reasons Banning had not elected to tell her. And that meant she was going to have to spend all day in the dark, damp cell two floors underground at SHSWPA. And probably do the same thing all day tomorrow, too. Someone had to be available to deliver MAGIC intercepts to Generals MacArthur and Willoughby, and since Banning and Hon were in Townesville, and Moore was officially not supposed to know even what MAGIC meant, that left her.

When she looked at her watch and saw that it was only a quarter after eight, she was even more annoyed. She had told him to pick Hon up at the Commerce Hotel and deliver him to the airport; then to stop at the Cryptographic Facility, pick up what had come in, and run it through the machine; and then, 'about nine, Baby, come pick me up.' "

She decided she knew what was in his mind, the horny little devil, and while that was flattering, now was not the time. She had just spent an hour washing and doing her hair, and if that happened, as appealing as it was, she would have to go through the whole process again, starting with the shower.

The door to her bedroom was flung open.

"You ever think of knocking?"

"Sorry," he said, visibly unrepentant. "Take a look at these."

There was something important in the overnights, she thought. He doesn't have that delightfully shyly naughty look in his eyes.

She took the two sheets of onion skin from him, and read them.

URGENT SECRET

HQ USMC WASHDC 2205 15AUG42

VIA: SUPREME HEADQUARTERS

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA

TO: COMMANDING OFFICER

USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT 14

1. ON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE SGT JOHN M. MOORE IS DETACHED FROM USMC SPECDET 14, ATTACHED

HQ FIRST MARDIV, AND WILL PROCEED THERETO IMMEDIATELY.

2. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO INFORM SHSWPA THAT AN URGENT REQUIREMENT FOR JAPANESE-LANGUAGE

LINGUISTS EXISTS WITHIN FIRST MARDIV AND REQUEST OF THEM HIGHEST POSSIBLE AIR TRANSPORTATION PRIORITY FOR SERGEANT MOORE.

BY DIRECTION: H.W.T.FORREST, BRIGGEN USMC

ACOFSG-2

URGENT

CONFIDENTIAL

HQ USMC WASHDC 2207 15 AUG42

TO: LT COL GEORGE F. DAILEY

CINCPAC LIAISON OFFICER

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA

INFORMATION: CINCPAC ATTN: CHIEF OF STAFF

COMMANDING GENERAL 1ST MARINE DIVISION

1. ON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE YOU ARE DETACHED FROM PRESENT DUTIES AND WILL PROCEED

IMMEDIATELY TO HEADQUARTERS FIRST MARDIV FOR DUTY AS ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-2. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES AUTHORITY FOR AAAA AIR TRAVEL PRIORITY.

2. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO INFORM SHSWPA THAT THE EXIGENCIES OF THE SERVICE MAKE THIS

TRANSFER NECESSARY AND THAT A LIAISON OFFICER TO REPLACE YOU WILL BE ASSIGNED AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE TIME.

3. IF POSSIBLE, AND TO THE DEGREE THAT IT WILL NOT REPEAT NOT INTERFERE WITH YOUR

MOVEMENT TO FIRST MARDIV, YOU ARE DIRECTED TO FACILITATE THE MOVEMENT TO FIRST MAR DIV OF SERGEANT J.M.MOORE, PRESENTLY ASSIGNED USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT 14.

BY DIRECTION OF BRIG GEN FORREST:

F L RICKABEE, LTCOL, USMC

"I called Townesville," Moore said. "They either don't know where Banning is, or he doesn't want it known."

"I wonder why Rickabee signed the one to Dailey?" Ellen said, thoughtfully, "and General Forrest the one about you? And the one about you is classified Secret, and the one to Dailey only Confidential?"

"What the hell difference does it make?" Moore asked, but he took the onion skins from her hand. "Probably because everything about the detachment is classified Secret but the name," he said.

"Obviously, you don't want to go," Ellen said. "Is that why you tried to call Banning?"

"I can't go, for Christ's sake," Moore said. "I'm privy to MAGIC."

"Not officially," she thought out loud.

"That's not the point," he said. "I know about MAGIC."

"The point is, they-Rickabee and Forrest-don't know that. That's why they're sending you to Guadalcanal."

She thought: And if it comes out that Fleming Pickering compromised MAGIC by letting you in on it, he's in trouble. I don't want to see that happen.

Banning is supposed to be clever. Let him see if he can find a solution to this.

"I think the thing for you to do is make yourself scarce until we can get in contact with Major Banning," Ellen said.

"Too late. That was the first thing I thought of. But Dailey's caught me."

"How?"

"His orders didn't have to go through crypto. So as soon as they came in, the message center gave them to him... Christ, that's why they classified them Confidential, so they wouldn't have to go through crypto..."

Ellen thought about that quickly, and said, "Yes. Probably."

"I had just run the radio to Banning through the crypto machine and was trying to get him on the telephone, when an MP came to the cell and said I had a visitor at Outer Security."

"Dailey?"

"Yeah. Pumped full of his own importance. You could practically hear the Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps playing the Marine Hymn in the background."

She smiled, and their eyes met.

I'm going to miss him.

"What did he say?" she asked.

" 'Sergeant Moore,' Moore quoted sonorously, `I have been ordered to Guadalcanal by Headquarters, USMC. You are to accompany me. We leave immediately.' "

She smiled at him again.

"I didn't tell him I had just decrypted my own orders; I told him I worked for Banning, and he would have to talk to him."

"And?"

" 'Sergeant, I am the ranking Marine officer present. I will see that Major Banning is informed of what has transpired,' or bullshit to that effect."

"My God!"

"I tried refusing," Moore said. "Politely. I told him that Major Banning had told me to take orders from nobody else."

"And?"

Moore pointed toward the window. Ellen went and pushed the curtain aside. There was a 1941 Ford staff car in the drive. It had MILITARY POLICE painted on the doors. An MP wearing a white helmet liner was sitting on it. Another rested his rear end on the front fender.

"They're going to take me to the airport," Moore said. "Dailey apparently rushed to tell Willoughby, or maybe Sutherland, of his orders... for all I know, The Emperor himself may have gotten into the act by now. Anyway, a B-25 is going to fly us to Espiritu Santo. The field at Guadalcanal won't take a B-25 yet. So from Espiritu Santo, we'll go by Catalina."